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Jonathan Turley Levels Democrats for Vowing to Impeach Trump Again

Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University and a Fox News contributor, criticized Democrats over vows to impeach President Trump for a third time if they regain control of Congress after this year’s midterm elections. 

Turley described the effort as “revenge” and “straight retaliation,” arguing that it risks making a mockery of impeachment. He pointed out that Democrats have, in his view, moved forward without formal investigations or hearings, effectively turning the process into something akin to a British-style vote of no confidence.

"It's a very destructive series of pledges that they're making," Turley said of Democrats. "It's part of this age of rage. They're promising straight revenge, straight retaliation."

"This is injecting that rage directly into the body politic. And there are many people who believe that that can carry them back into power," he continued, adding that he isn't sure if it will work in the Democrats' favor."

I testified at the Clinton impeachment and I testified at the Trump impeachment. And at the Trump impeachment, I asked Congress, and specifically the House, not to do what it was about to do, which is to destroy the body of law we have around impeachment. Instead of listening, they went ahead and impeached, but then they did one better. And the next impeachment, they didn't even hold a hearing.

"They did what I refer to as a snap impeachment and just went straight to impeachment, no hearing, no investigation. So this has become a pattern for Democrats. And I cannot express how damaging that is for our constitutional values and history," he said. "They're making impeachment into a version of the English vote of No Confidence. That's not what it is. It is something much more serious than that."

"They are turning it into an unbridled circus."

This is a pattern that has been consistent among Democrats: taking elements of U.S. rights and laws and stripping them of much of their original meaning. They do this with the right to protest, guaranteed by the First Amendment, where interviewers often ask liberals at demonstrations what they’re protesting, and they cite a wide range of causes—only one or two of which are actually relevant to the event itself. They do the same with free speech, often picking and choosing what speech deserves protection and what does not, frequently at the expense of conservative viewpoints. They do it with executive power as well, often leading efforts to expand presidential authority, and in the way they speak about the Constitution as though it were a roadblock rather than a safeguard of freedom. 

In the same way, they now threaten to make a mockery of what it means to impeach a president.